Apoptosis is a normal physiologic process that leads to individual cell death. This process of programmed cell death is involved in a variety of normal and pathogenic biological events and can be induced by a number of unrelated stimuli. Changes in the biological regulation of apoptosis also occur during aging and are responsible for many of the conditions and diseases related to aging. Recent studies of apoptosis have implied that a common metabolic pathway leading to cell death may be initiated by a wide variety of signals, including hormones, serum growth factor deprivation, chemotherapeutic agents, ionizing radiation, and infection by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Wyllie (1980) Nature 284: 555-556; Kanter et al. (1984) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 118: 392-399; Duke and Cohen (1986) Lymphokine Res. 5: 289-299; Tomei et al. (1988) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 155: 324-331; and Kruman et al. (1991) J. Cell. Physiol. 148: 267-273; Ameisen and Capron (1991) Immunol. Today 12: 102-105; and Sheppard and Ascher (1992) J. AIDS 5: 143-147. Agents that affect the biological control of apoptosis thus have therapeutic utility in numerous clinical indications.
Apoptotic cell death is characterized by cellular shrinkage, chromatin condensation, cytoplasmic blebbing, increased membrane permeability and interchromosomal DNA cleavage. Gerschenson et al. (1992) FASEB J. 6: 2450-2455; and Cohen and Duke (1992) Ann. Rev. Immunol. 10: 267-293.
All references cited herein both supra and infra are hereby incorporated herein by reference.
A variety of food supplements containing, in part, partially processed plant extracts have been used to ameliorate the gastrointestinal disorders that often accompany chemotherapy, radiation and AIDS. The supplements generally contain carbohydrates, fat and plant protein hydrolysates. See, e.g., Tomei and Cope et al. in Apoptosis The Molecular Basis of Cell Death (1991) Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
Several proteinase inhibitors derived from plant extracts have anticarcinogenic activity. Troll et al. (1987) Adv. Cancer Res. 49: 265-283. The Bowman-Birk inhibitors are the best described of these inhibitors. Birk (1985) Int. J. Pep. Pro. Res. 25: 113-131. Bowman-Birk inhibitors are described as a family of disulfide bonded proteins with a molecular weight of about 8 kD which suppress cellular transformation. Chou et al. (1974) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 71: 1748-1752; Yavelow et al. (1985) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 82: 5395-5399; and Yavelow et al. (1983) Cancer Res. (Suppl.) 43: 2454s-2459s. Crude soybean extracts containing Bowman-Birk inhibitors have been described. Kennedy et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,996. Bowman-Birk inhibitors have also been described immunologically. WO 90/03574; and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,959,310; and 5,053,327. Bowman-Birk inhibitors have also been found to have activity in degranulation of macrophages. Japanese Patent No. 63-51335.